Blog

Asthma Action Plan Blog

By: ZibdyHealth | Tags: AAFA, AAP, AARC, Allergy & Asthma Network, assisted care, Asthma, asthma action plan, caregiver, CDC, Continuation of Care document, COPD, EHR, Electronic Medical Records, FHIR, genetic, genomics, Health Information Exchange, HIE, interoperability, Lungs, medication reminder, MTM, Peak Flow, Pharmacogenomics, school, vitals | Comments: 0 | October 1st, 2018

Do you have a “dynamic” Asthma Action Plan?

The Asthma Action Plan is a patient’s personal guide to help control their asthma, and avoid getting into “trouble”.  The Asthma and Allergy Foundation of America (AAFA), the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), and others all recommend that persons diagnosed with asthma should have an asthma action plan.  These plans are customized to the individual to help them prevent and control asthma attacks. As most individuals with asthma know, attacks can bey scary, demoralizing, and can impact your life in many ways.  Most individuals with asthma also know that their risk of an attack varies by the season.  A plan that is adaptive and dynamic will improve prevention and limit the use of medications, all of which have side effects

The key to an asthma action plan is a “Peak Flow Meter” which allows patients to measure their peak air flow that day. Hours to days before an asthma attack occurs, an asthmatic may have imperceptible drops in their peak flow. The awareness provided by the daily check of the peak flow can ensure that the appropriate steps are taken to mitigate the attack. Typically, this includes an increase in some medications that may address the inflammation and airway reactivity, and stave off the attack.

 

ZibdyHealth’s Asthma Action and Monitoring Plan

ZibdyHealth has developed a digital Asthma Action and Monitoring Plan that is available on your phone.  Much more than the basic Action Plan, ZibdyHealth’s plan also includes a way to monitor your response to meds so that you can record these effects, and dynamically adjust your plan in working with your physician. A user starts by entering their Peak Maximum Flow (as determined with their doctor). ZibdyHealth then takes over – carrying out the calculations as recommended by the CDC (and AAFA) to create an Asthma Action Plan for that individual. After discussion with his or her physician, the user or their caregiver can then input the recommended medications and dosages for each stage of symptoms added. Asthmatics can then record their Peak Flow each day, and the appropriate section of the Asthma Action Plan will be shown, with the guide to medication and dosage, as well as any activity advice.

 

Asthma Action Plan 2.0 – the ZibdyHealth Asthma Action Plan

The ZibdyHealth app allows you to have access to your asthma action plan at your fingertips. Your phone is with you everywhere you go… now your asthma action plan as well. The app-based approach allows for you to more efficiently record and monitor your Peak Flows, look at trends and identify patterns. We call our plan a asthma action and monitoring plan, because in addition to recording your peak flows  (which are recorded in a color coded manner – green for top 20%, yellow for 20-50% and Red for 0-50%– with a date and time stamp) the app will also allow you to record medications, doses, and response to the meds. These records can then be reviewed by the user with his or her care provider to look for trends that can be used to optimize the plan, or modify it according to the season.

Another benefit of an electronic action plan is that it is easy to store all of your previous plans. A user and his or her physician can look “back” at these older plans and review what worked and what didn’t work. 

 

Sharing Asthma Care

Another huge benefit of the ZibdyHealth asthma action plan is that a user can share their symptoms, peak flows and their action plan with loved ones and care providers. Within ZibdyHealth, you can set up associations (with family members or care givers), with whom you can share some or all of your health data. This will allow parents to monitor their children, and children to monitor their elderly parents.  If shared with a school nurse, the asthma action and monitoring can seamlessly take place across home and school… and more importantly. allows school nurses to have this essential information to care for a child suffering from asthma at school.

 

ZibdyHealth is not just for Asthma

Asthma can have many associated conditions, including complications from the disease and the treatments. When managing a patient with asthma, physicians need to be aware of all the other potentially associated conditions. With ZibdyHealth, monitoring does not stop with asthma. All of the patient’s other health information – vital signs, allergies, vaccinations, laboratory results, imaging, medications and medical history are ALL vitally important in combination with the action plan. The ZibdyHealth app provides many additional functions such as medication reminders, interactions warnings and the ability to download/upload Electronic Health Records (CCD/FHIR) all work alongside and with the Asthma Action Plan. This makes ZibdyHealth a Complete Smart Personal Health Assistant.

Privacy – ZibdyHealth takes user privacy very seriously. We neither share or sell user data to ANYONE. As a user, you have total control on how your health data is being shared, and who your health data is shared with. To learn more about data sharing, please read all about our approach on our blog “Privacy and Permissions”.

To learn more about ZibdyHealth watch our videos at Tutorial Videos.

 

Please do not forget to let us know what features you like and what else you will like us to include in future release. You can always reach us at support@zibdy.com.